3D Laser Scanning

Complex Plant Environments

Petrochemical and Process Plants

Building Information Modelling

Scan to BIM and Revit Surveys

Historical and listed buildings

Digital Documentation and Metric Surveys

3D LASER SCANNING

Laser scanning is known under a number of names, some of these are High Definition Surveying, 3D laser scanning or LiDAR (Light Detection and ranging) all of these are terms that describe the process of digitally capturing an environment in 3D. Although there are other methods (white light, video etc), the industry standard for medium to long range data capture is laser based.

Currently there are many different types of scanners each with varying speeds, accuracy, ranges, durability and general uses. Many are tripod mounted and represent the evolution of traditional single point surveying using a theodolite or total station.

There are also a host of new hand held and mobile scanning systems available.

3D DATACAPTURE

At Luminous we operate a range of equipment ensuring the best tool is used for the job in hand as no one scanner does everything.

We predominantly use the following pieces of equipment:

• Faro Focus
• Leica P20
• Surphaser HSX
• Dot Product DPI

No matter which scanner is used, the basic principle is the same. A laser is fired out and for every surface that the laser hits, a point in space is recorded (giving an xyz value). At the same time the scanner will record the reflectivity of the surface giving an intensity value and nowadays, most scanners also have in built cameras which provide colour and an rgb value to each point. These points are captured at speeds of up to 1 million points of data per second creating a very dense data set.

PROCESSING

Even a small scanning job can be made up of billions of 3D points in space. These datasets are referred to as ‘point clouds’ and are sometimes referred to as cloud point surveys. In the past many people have been put off by the sheer size of these datasets. Without specialist knowledge and workstations, the information could be hard to use and manage.

In 2014 Autodesk introduced its own priority point cloud file format (.rcs) and all Autodesk products from 2014 onwards have some form of basic point cloud manipulation functionality. There has also been a drive to improve point cloud interoperability as many laser scanning manufactures use their own priority formats. This has led to the development of the .e57 file format as a global standard for transferring and issuing point clouds.

What ever the size or complexity of your project Luminous have the experience and skills to deliver the right data a competitive price.